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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Complete Chaos in Ferguson; CNN Correspondent and Producer Caught in Chaos; Gaza Cease-Fire Extended 24 Hours

Aired August 19, 2014 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Our breaking news overnight: Complete chaos in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. The National Guard unable to stop protests from, again, turning violent. Dozens arrested. Two people shot in crowd on crowd violence.

Crowd's furious over the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. Dramatic video overnight, and what's next in this case?

We are live in Ferguson. Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. John Berman is off today. It is 32 minutes past the hour.

I want to get you up to speed on the breaking news this morning, following all that's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. Police and protesters clashing, again, on those streets. Stun grenades and tear gas fired by police.

Police say rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails were thrown at them. At least two people were shot, not by police, but shot in the crowd by other protesters, 31 arrests were made, some from as far away as California and New York. Four officers were injured.

Earlier Monday, President Obama appealed for calm in Ferguson. The Attorney General Eric Holder will get a firsthand look at the situation when he goes there tomorrow.

I want to bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera live in Ferguson, Missouri. He's there with our producer, CNN producer Steve Kastenbaum.

And here's what I'm curious from your vantage point. This was a peaceful protest in the name of Michael Brown that turned, at some point, into a violent party. Is that an accurate assessment?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: By the time it turned violent, once again, the vast majority of the people who came out to demonstrate had left. I don't know if it's because they sensed something was going to take a turn for the worse or they had been there long enough and are ready to move along. That more sinister element has moved in, it's not exactly clear. But the night started off just fine. The roads were blocked off. No

traffic along the road where the demonstrations have been taking place. And the rule tonight was, from authorities, as long as you kept moving, kept walking and essentially what the demonstrators were doing was going up and down the street almost in a circle, if you will, chanting and carrying on, everything was fine. But, it didn't take long before some of that started to change and it became very intense very quickly and you got that, you know, both sides kind of standing off once again.

Captain Johnson, you can hear it in his voice, is trying to figure out some way to communicate with these people that are causing these problems, to try to get them to calm down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. RON JOHNSON, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: There were numerous reports of shots fired. We had two fires, one at a business and one at an unoccupied residence. In the area of West Florissant-Canfield, officers came under heavy gunfire. Our officer confiscated two guns when a car stopped near the media staging area. These are not acts of protesters, but acts of violent criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: You know, Christine, it was interesting, I'm bringing in Steve Kastenbaum, our producer now, is what Captain Johnson was referring to there were those two guns confiscated. That happened 15 feet from where I was standing. Looking at the situation now, in that crowd of people, I had no idea that car was around us and it tried to speed out and make its way on to the roadway there when it was cut off by the armored vehicle and everybody jumped out.

At the time, we didn't know exactly what these guys had done, but they had pinpointed, somehow they had pinpointed these guys. They got information and went after them directly. We saw a lot of that tonight.

STEVE KASTENBAUM, CNN PRODUCER: We saw up close, what the police have been facing night after night after night. And that's the fact while the overwhelming majority of people who have been coming here have been actively protesting in a peaceful way, there are a small number of people in this crowd who come here intent not only on confronting police, but some of them, as we saw tonight and in previous nights, some of them are armed. You and I were right there as part of the SWAT units were confronting a group of a few dozen, and just a few dozen. There were hundreds and hundreds of people that came out to protest.

A few dozen ran to one end of the avenue, were defying the order to clear the street. They were vandalizing, in some ways. They were carrying street signs. They pulled the poles out of the ground and were walking around with one street sign that said, do not enter, waving it in front of the police face. And then the police were telling them, push back, push back. They would not move back. They wouldn't get out of the street. At some point during that exchange with police, the fires started.

There was at least one Molotov cocktail that you saw. You saw flames being lit in the street by the protesters. At that point, myself and photojournalist Ken Tillis (ph) happened to be looking in a direction that some individual in the crowd decided he wanted to set a building on fire. We caught video of this.

LAVANDERA: The most tense moment for me, Christine, tonight, was at one point, one of the first two people arrested was two guys that were standing together. One of the interesting things tonight has been that there was a group of community leaders, religious leaders that were acting as a buffer, trying to get people in line, trying to ease tensions, calm people down.

And this one guy had a milk jug with some sort of, what appeared to me in the weird light is that some sort of pink fluid filled half way. But what made me nervous was that he had a glove over the hand that he was holding. Almost like if that was a Molotov cocktail, I can't say for certain. When I saw the glove, almost as if you want to protect your hand from getting burned, you know, that was very tense. I caught myself just behind that. The police on the other side, I thought that is not a good situation to be in.

But again, those were some of the first guy that is moved in, wrapped them up quickly and got them out of the crowd and then were retreated. It wasn't like the police line was advancing down the street, going in, targeting the guys and moving out.

KASTENBAUM: Right. There was one point early on, at the tension was building, where while there were lines of protesters facing the police and shouting at them and the police were facing them, but not moving in. Somebody from within the crowd threw a glass bottle at the police. We all saw this. The police identified him quickly, pointing out at him.

The man stood there. He was easily identifiable. He had his shirt off, he had a lot of tattoos. He stood there like this, which is the stance we have seen a lot. People have been chanting, hands up, don't shoot. He stood there like that, the riot police moved in, a small team of them, grabbed him, extricated him, brought him back behind their lines and arrested.

So, that was a tactic we didn't see the last couple nights. So, they have been changing up their tactics throughout the course of these demonstrations to try and find a way to deal with this where they weren't impeding on the people's right to protest, while still dealing with these bad actors as Captain Johnson called them.

And also, I just want to point out, he displayed the two handguns that came from the car that you saw while you and I were up there. We also, very clearly heard gunshots fired during the course of the night from the side streets where protesters scattered after the tear gas was used on the crowd. And that's when, apparently, these civilians were shot during the night. They were not shot by police, according to Captain Johnson, but were victims of the gunfire that we heard. LAVANDERA: And we want to be clear, just to try to give people a

sense of exactly where things kind of transpired. The video you see of police line making its way toward people, that was on the southern end of the street, where you saw the tear gas deployed was a quarter mile north of that. What I find interesting is that there were fewer people up there, for at least fewer grown ups, as the people trying to keep the peace have been describing them.

And so, there weren't as many, I think only two or armored vehicles up in that area, much more intense situation because those officers don't have the back up.

KASTENBAUM: Right. There were out there, basically on their own. These two vehicles with a few dozen of the police in riot gear had advanced on this group that had sort of broken off from the main body of the protesters back down where the media was staged.

LAVANDERA: Right. So, it's interesting, that's where things -- because I thought we were going to see the tear gas where we were early on. And it didn't get to that there.

KASTENBAUM: And we should also point out that where the more violent confrontations took place, right off the intersection where Michael Brown was shot.

LAVANDERA: Exactly. Then, Christine, we get into the situation after the tear gas and the fires were lit back on to that road that leads you down to the area where Michael Brown was killed. And that's where probably more than a dozen people scattered in neighborhoods. That's where Captain Johnson was saying some of the heaviest gunfire in the more dangerous situation was heard and ended up with 31 people arrested tonight.

ROMANS: Thirty-one arrested, two people shot in that crowd-on-crowd violence. Let me ask you about the police response, because there are some who have said, look, the riot gear and the batons and gas masks and the all of hyper-militarized look of the police is inciting anger in the crowds.

Do you feel like they've over -- I mean, maybe it's an opinion. I don't want you to give your opinion. I want you to tell me what the view is from the crowd. Are they provoking it with the militarized look of the police or they have no other choice? If you are firing shots at police officers, they've got to be dressed like that?

LAVANDERA: You know, this is interesting. I'll tell you, one of my experiences tonight is that I was talking to one of the men who was trying to keep the peace. He was a Nation of Islam leader. He's out here in a suit and tie, trying to negotiate and talking with people.

I asked him, we were in the middle of an interview there on the side of the street, what he thought of the police response because we were talking about how, if it had been planned, that the police would give him an opportunity to talk people down and let them calm down. He was telling me it just kind of happened, I think that they saw him kind of take the lead. He thought police were giving him a chance to kind of keep the peace.

And then, all of a sudden, in the middle of this interview, one of the SWAT vehicles or the armored vehicles pulls up next to us. And the guys jump out. There was a man you could see in the background of the video wearing a yellow shirt and they surrounded him immediately. They did that for a reason.

ROMANS: Right.

LAVANDERA: They were targeting something, because that's what we saw repeatedly tonight. And after I've been talking to him and saying like, you know, he appreciated the way police were very restrained. That same man pointed to that moment and said this is exactly the kind of thing, because the person didn't have but a bottle of water in his pocket and they didn't arrest him. They just got back in their vehicle and retreated back. That man said this is exactly the kind of thing that can instigate people.

So, it's a little bit of a snapshot. You can make of that what you will. But that's a snapshot of a moment that I experienced.

KASTENBAUM: And also, in regards to your question, Christine, earlier on the evening, police along the avenue, they were not in the riot gear. They were in their every day uniforms. Even once they went to the riot gear, when these community leaders, these church leaders tried to intervene and get the protesters to back off, to get out of the street and the sidewalks, we saw something tonight that we haven't seen any other night.

And that was the community leaders, those church leaders turning around, looking at the police officers, talking to them and saying we're OK. You're OK? The police officers acknowledged them.

And they shook hands --

ROMANS: Wow.

KASTENBAUM: -- in the middle of this tension, they shook hands. I saw some thank yous being exchanged.

And that's the first time I have seen that where the police acknowledge that they just saw what was going on. They saw the community members were trying to do good, were self-policing and trying to stop this from escalating. We haven't seen that on any other night.

ROMANS: OK. Steve Kastenbaum and Ed Lavandera, we'll talk to you guys again soon. Thanks -- thanks for being there and all your hard work. I know it's been a really long night. We'll talk to you again very, very soon.

We're following the breaking news out of Missouri that you've been listening to, people shot, Molotov cocktails launched at police, gunfire in the streets, tear gas used to stop the violence in the streets of Ferguson. Much, much more on that ahead.

Plus, a cease-fire ending today in Gaza. Is war -- war between Israel and Hamas hours away? We are live with the very latest in Gaza, next.

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ROMANS: Forty-nine minutes past the hour.

There's still hope for a long term peace agreement between Israel and Hamas. The two sides agreeing to extend their cease-fire another 24 hours. It's now set to expire just over 12 hours from now. It's giving negotiators in Cairo more time to hammer out a plan to bring genuine peace to Gaza.

Frederik Pleitgen is live in Gaza for us.

What's the latest, Fred?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christine. They're certainly going to need those 24 hours. There was a member of the Hamas delegation at those talks who said that so far, the two sides have not made any sort of progress, which is quite interesting, because last night, for awhile, it seemed as though they were actually quite close to a deal.

For awhile, a deal was being announced, then things almost fell apart. They now agreed to the 24-hour extension of a cease-fire. And certainly, it's something people here in Gaza will monitor very, very closely, because they are very much fed up with the fighting. They are afraid the fighting could resume.

One of the things Israel's prime minister said is after the cease- fire, if there's rocket fire from Hamas, there will be a very, very strong Israeli response. We could see it last night, we could see that last night. We could see how they were crowding the air space here with drones, watching out whether or not anybody would try and launch any sort of rockets.

Certainly, it's a very tense situation and one where people here in Gaza are watching very, very closely what's going on in Cairo today, Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks so much, Fred Pleitgen, in Gaza.

Twelve hours until that cease-fire expires.

All right. Breaking news this morning, violence and chaos, again, in Ferguson, Missouri. Tear gas, gunfire, Molotov cocktails filling the streets. Angry protests over the deadly police shooting 10 days ago of unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown. Hear from a journalist caught in the chaos, next.

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ROMANS: We are following breaking news: another night of chaos in Ferguson, Missouri. Police in tactical gear and armored vehicles firing stun grenades and tear gas, after rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails were thrown at them. At least two people were shot in the crowd, not by police, crowd-on-crowd violence, two shot in the crowd. Thirty-one arrests were made.

The curfew was lifted, replaced by new rules for protesters, preventing them from congregating.

CNN's Don Lemon spoke to a photographer who was hit by a tear gas canister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: How long were you down?

LEO YORK, FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER: I don't know. I was like -- people were grabbing me and pulling me out. I don't know, some guy pulled me out and I kind of hit the floor and I couldn't breathe. It felt like my lungs, like I was under water and I was drowning.

LEMON: Were other people down there who got hit as much as you did?

YORK: I can't tell you. There was gas everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Of course, we continue to follow developments all morning from Ferguson, Missouri.

For our viewers around the world, "CNN NEWSROOM" is next.

For our viewers here in the U.S., EARLY START continues with more violent protests in Missouri, right after the break.

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